Pestalotiopsidaceae – Facesoffungi number: FoF 0666

Pestalotiopsidaceae Maharachch. & K.D. Hyde, fam. nov., Index Fungorum number: IF551178

Saprobic or pathogenic on plants. Sexual morph: Ascomata scattered, solitary or in small group, immersed, apex short erumpent. Ostiole subglobose, papillate ostiolar canal periphysate. Peridium comprising several layers of dark brown to blackish, compressed cells. Hamathecium comprising tapering paraphyses. Asci 8-spored, unitunicate, cylindrical, short to long pedicellate, with a J+ or J- apical ring. Ascospores uniseriate, brown, ovoid to elliptic, straight or inequilateral, 2–3-septate. Asexual morph: Coelomycetous. Conidiomata acervular or pycnidial, subglobose, globose, clavate, solitary or aggregated, dark brown to black, immersed to erumpent, unilocular or irregularly plurilocular. Peridium comprising 2–3 strata of textura angularis, outer layer of pale brown, thick-walled cells, becoming hyaline in the inner layer. Conidiophores indistinct, often reduced to conidiogenous cells, when present peripheral, hyaline, branched or unbranched, cylindrical or lageniform. Conidiogenous cells discrete, holoblastic, annellidic, indeterminate, integrated, cylindrical, hyaline, smooth. Conidia ellipsoid to clavate, or fusiform, straight or curved, 3–4-euseptate, hyaline, pale olivaceous or brown, bearing cellular, filiform or attenuated appendages.

Type: Pestalotiopsis Steyaert, Bull. Jard. bot. État Brux. 19: 300 (1949)

Notes: The new family Pestalotiopsidaceae, which possesses pestalotiopsis-like asexual morphs is introduced for Ciliochorella, Lepteutypa, Monochaetia, Neopestalotiopsis, Pestalotiopsis, Pseudopestalotiopsis and Seiridium. Maharachchikumbura et al. (2014) suggested that the monotypic genus Pestalotia (1839) might be a synonym of Seiridium (1816), since both genera have similar morphologies. Members of the Pestalotiopsidaceae are common phytopathogens that cause a variety of diseases in plants or are often isolated as saprobes or endophytes and are widely distributed throughout tropical and temperate regions (Guba 1961; Barr 1975; Nag Raj 1993; Maharachchiku-mbura et al. 2014). The sexual morph of Pestalotiopsis is Pestalosphaeria (Barr 1975) and Seiridium has a Lepteutypa sexual morph (Nag Raj and Kendrick 1985).